A terrorist cell with missiles aimed at a leading hospital in America’s Bible Belt . . .

Not for Profit takes
you on an action-packed thrill ride that will have you questioning
suspects, motives, and outcomes until the very last page.

Here's an excerpt of the first and second chapter, provided by Glenn for your enjoyment.

Not
for Profit

by
Glenn Shepard

Chapter 1

Kandahar
Airfield, Afghanistan, 6 a.m., Three Months Earlier

“Alpha
Charlie, Alpha Charlie, get ready for action! The target's on the
move!”

The words
vibrated in Charlie’s earpiece as he sat bolt upright, and flexed
his 220 pound, 6 foot 2-inch frame. He had spent the last four days
glued to the monitors, never leaving the control center, even as the
other eight members of the Air Force forensics team took brief meal
and sleep breaks. Alpha Charlie was a CIA-hired civilian contractor
whose mission in Afghanistan was to control pilotless aircraft and
destroy enemy targets. Ninety six hours ago, he was scheduled to
return to his civilian job in America, when forensics identified the
Al-Qaeda leader, Muhamed Bin Garza, only 230 miles away in the Mir
Ali area of North Waziristan. He cancelled his flight home.

It had been
two years since they had a positive ID on Bin Garza. And Charlie
wanted blood.

The
notorious Al-Qaeda leader was responsible for the suicide bombing
in Mumbai, Amman, London, and Somalia, and had
connections to the World Trade Center attack in New York.
Now he was a sitting duck. He had been spotted while entering a
complex of tents and adobe houses adjacent to the mountains and
caves. He would be leaving any moment now. This was the one and
only chance Alpha Charlie would ever have to eliminate Bin Garza.
Bin Garza’s death would be the ultimate notch in his gun barrel.
His job back home could wait. He had taken out terrorists before,
but Bin Garza was the trophy he had been training and waiting his
whole life for.

Alpha
Charlie was stationed in one of two identical Quonset huts on the
base, both sitting within 50 meters of each other. In the first hut,
the US Air Force forensics team was housed. Their function was to
make the drones airborne, to locate and identify targets, and to land
the vehicles when their missions were completed. Alpha Charlie sat
in a single chair in the second hut.

But this
was no ordinary chair. It was a one-of-a-kind control chair loaded
with hundreds of computer systems that required delicate
manipulations. At the end of each armrest were two joysticks, one
for each hand. Both were equipped with a dozen buttons, some black
and others red, all with separate and distinct functionalities. Ever
since he was 12 years old, Charlie played video arcade games. He had
mastered the games almost immediately, having innately good reflexes
and hand-eye coordination. He also lacked moral qualms... about
anything. After winning several gaming competitions in his late 20s,
he was contacted by the CIA and accepted their offer to move from
murdering virtual foes to slaughtering real ones.

The CIA
granted him access to a new program which involved piloting drones.
Very quickly, Charlie had learned to operate them as well as the Air
Force’s best pilots. His penchant for video games made his skills
acute, and these gaming skills readily transferred to drone
operation. His immediate mastery of the pilotless aircraft meant an
underlying talent that many of the professional pilots lacked. They
were readily trainable, but not one had the innate ability to pick up
the controls of an aircraft with which they had no experience and so
quickly be able to operate it with such a sharp degree of precision.
Charlie had even proven himself to be brilliant under pressure and
once he tasted actual combat, he gained a voracious appetite for it.
The thrill of killing a virtual terrorist couldn’t compare to the
rush of killing one made of flesh and blood.

Air Force
Colonel Ben Edwards, the director of the operation, ran into
Charlie’s hut. He glanced at Alpha Charlie's hands as they moved
the joysticks. Edwards marveled at how Charlie’s fingers glided
over the controls and easily performed maneuvers that his other
“pilots” struggled with.

Suddenly
Edwards saw it - the blinking red light on the fuel gauge. One
hundred pounds of fuel left. Seventy two miles of "life"
left in the fuel tank, not enough to get the aircraft halfway back to
Kandahar. He screamed, "Charlie! You're running out of fuel!"

Alpha
Charlie pretended not to hear. He had already extended the flight
time five hours using the updrafts of the mountains to conserve fuel
and lowering the speed to 320 MPH, but he was concerned. An hour
ago, he ordered his Global Hawk fuel carrier, yet it was not on his
radar screen. Well, that's a problem he didn't have time for.

His focus
remained locked on the three monitors in front of him. Screen A
showed a scurry of activity in the small, peaceful Haqqui tribal
village. Bin Garza was going for a ride. That was it! Charlie's
waiting was over. He leaned forward and watched carefully.

In the
center of the village, a 1960s Mercedes sedan and a 1980s Chrysler
New Yorker were parked in front of an adobe house. Alongside the two
cars, a small entourage surrounded three men who had just left the
house and were walking to the vehicles. A dozen cheering villagers
reached to touch the men as guards pushed them aside. On Screen B,
the forensics experts focused on the faces of the men and enlarged
them. Screen C showed a broad view of the 5 square mile area
surrounding the target.

Screen A
showed the men getting into the two cars, while screen B flipped
through stills of the faces. Then the camera fine-tuned portrait
quality images. Charlie heard excitement build from the other hut,
“That's definitely Bin Garza!”

“And
that's his number two, Shakel, with him! We can get two for the
price of one, if we hit 'em now!” The third man on the screen kept
his shumag pulled over his face and was not able to be identified.

Colonel
Edwards shouted across the room, “Alpha Charlie, we have Al-Qaeda's
two top men together. Targets confirmed! It's now or never. Get
'em!”

Alpha
Charlie turned to Screen A, the target monitor showing live pictures
from the MQ-4A Global Hawk drone he controlled. This model was the
largest and best equipped drone in his fleet, but it was brand new
and untested. It had been airborne for nearly 48 hours and circled
the area at 50,000 feet, filming the area where Pakistani
intelligence had said these men were staying. Sweat dripped down
Charlie’s brow as he saw the plummeting fuel gauge now reading
empty.

Time was
running out. Charlie focused the camera, centering it on the now
moving car.

Alpha
Charlie did not respond, but he heard Edwards. He had one shot and
didn't want to fuck it up. His mental clock ticked down - 20, 19,
18; he remained calm and showed no signs of tension. His left hand
guided a blinking red target square over the car. With the image of
the square fixed to the target, Charlie centered the X.

CLICK! The
Hellfire missile locked on the Mercedes. Twelve, 11, 10...

Charlie
quickly touched the red trigger button with his thumb and fired the 5
foot long missile which carried over 30 pounds of explosives. At a
speed of 950 MPH, the missile would be paying the Mercedes a surprise
visit within 3 seconds.

But would
it get there in time?

The
Mir Ali Village, 6:04 a.m.

A
high-pitched WHIRRR, like that of a model airplane, filled the
sky above the village. The driver of the Mercedes looked up and saw
the silvery flash of reflected sunlight emerging from the obscurity
of the mountain behind.

As the
driver accelerated, he saw the 5 foot long Hellfire missile speeding
towards them. Bin Garza screamed in terror as he gripped the seat of
the car and braced himself. The explosion was tremendous, ripping
the men and car to pieces.

A hundred
feet away, the unidentified man in the shumag, Omar Farok, felt his
Chrysler bounce around like a toy ball. The concussion of the impact
nearly deafened him. He watched from the Chrysler as a fireball
swallowed up the Mercedes; then, there was only a blinding cloud of
smoke and dirt.

Fortunately
for Farok, his driver was familiar with the terrain of this village
and the Chrysler instantly turned left onto a mountain path dodging
around three trees. As the Chrysler slammed to a halt, a petrified
Farok dove out of the car and ran into a mountain cave. He sat
trembling in the cave as he watched another Hellfire missile devour
the Chrysler in a ball of red flames, engulfing his driver as he
tried to escape.

Farok’s
voice echoed inside the cave, “American pigs, I swear on Allah's
blessed name, you will pay for this!"

The Kandahar Drone
Control Center, 6:05 a.m.

Col.
Edwards and his forensics team cheered!

But Alpha
Charlie did not celebrate, even as the refueling aircraft in the sky
above saved his drone from sputtering to the earth on its last pound
of fuel. Sure, Charlie was pleased about the millions that he had
made from this kill. This extra money would allow him to shift his
drone control station and missiles back home and continue his
missions from there, but still, he wasn't about to jump up and down
and cheer. He'd done his job.

He stood as
bottles of Dom Perignon were uncorked. Without fanfare, Charlie
grabbed a drink and downed it. Then, he poured himself another.

As he
swallowed, he thought to himself, ‘All in a day's work’.

Chapter
2

The
Surgery Center, Jackson City, N.C., 7 p.m., Three Months Later

If you were
to walk into my cosmetic surgery office, you’d see that I designed
a space that is healing, orderly and serene. There are no crystals
or there is no new age music playing, but there's a little waterfall
and many of the walls and open spaces feature my favorite flower –
the orchid.

My orchids
are always resplendent with gorgeous colored blooms – hot pink,
deep magenta, white with mauve spots. I care for all the plants
myself by watering them, limiting the amount of sunlight, and
constantly measuring and altering the composition of the soil. In my
office, you’ll always find a colorful Doritaenopsis.

My favorite
is the pure white Phalaenopsis to the left of the waterfall. When I
first opened my office, a patient sent that to me, but it was solid
blue -- an unnatural color for an orchid. I sensed that someone
blue-inked the roots, like the blue roses in Kipling's poems.
Saturating a flower in ink always seemed wrong and angered me in the
same way that a bad facelift did. In my mind, there were absolute
rights and wrongs in this world. A person's face shouldn't be
stretched so tight that their eyes and lips get distorted, and a
white orchid should remain pure white.

I became
obsessed with that Phalaenopsis, nurturing it (in a back room, of
course) until it bloomed again and this time, it was the purest white
of any orchid I ever had. I look at the broken pieces of Orchis
sitting in my waiting room every day and I try my best to put her
back together. And most of the time, I succeed. Except today.
Today was not going so well…

"Why's
it taking her so long to recover from the anesthetic?" I asked
as I removed my surgical gown and gloves. I arched my back, stiff
from bending over so much. After 12 hours of surgery, I was
exhausted. I’d just hit 40 and I was really starting to feel it.

I smiled at
my anesthesiologist, Dr. Boyd Carey. "Two face lifts, two
liposuctions and three augmentation mammoplasties is enough for one
day."

Dr. Carey
did not return the smile. He looked over his half-frame glasses and
shrugged. "If you hadn't bowed to Keyes' ridiculous demand to
keep her privacy by sending your two nurses home early, her "auggie"
would have only taken 45 minutes." Carey was a thin vegan who
would’ve probably been happier if he ate a burger once and awhile.
Fine wrinkles in his 45-year-old dark skin made him look 60.

I took off
my surgical cap and finger-combed my hair. "Come on now, Boyd.
Relax. Hey, at least we aren’t working in the tobacco fields.”

“Oh God,
you’re not going to start in again on your childhood stories of
slaving away in the fields to pay for college—"

“I could
if—"

“Please,
spare me.”

Carey
turned to the patient for a minute and then tilted his head back and
faced me again. "No. She's still sound asleep. And that's
another thing, Scott. We should have given her Propaphol, like we do
on all our patients. She'd be awake by now. But no! You always
grant all your patient's every wish and kiss their surgically-raised
asses."

Ethel Keyes
had been my office manager for the past two months. She was a hard
worker with a sweet personality; everyone who came in contact with
her liked her. I had never before employed anyone who so quickly
endeared herself to everyone. And it probably didn't hurt that she
was a 32-year-old blonde who looked like a high fashion model.

Just a few
days ago, Keyes had confided to me that she always felt uncomfortable
with her body as she thought her breasts were too small. She had
done such a great job in the office, revamping my billing system,
changing the office health insurance to a less expensive and more
comprehensive plan, and computerized all my office records, that I
offered to do a breast auggie surgery for her - pro bono.

However, it
was a mistake. Beyond the ethical issues involved in operating on
employees, she proved to be a difficult patient from the beginning:
refusing Propaphol as her anesthetic because it killed Michael
Jackson; forbidding the use of the second best medication,
intravenous Versed, because she didn’t like its amnesic properties,
and insisting on an older style of anesthesia, Valium and Demerol,
but in reduced doses.

She argued
that she was sensitive to all sedatives. Sure enough, it took only 2
mg of Valium and 50 mg of Demerol to knock her completely out. Most
people required 10 mg of Valium and 100 mg of Demerol with touch-up
medications given as the patients got "light". No
additional drugs were needed today as she slept soundly. And kept on
sleeping even after the procedure ended and Dr. Carey and I waited
... and waited for her to wake up.

I leaned
over the OR table and tapped her cheeks lightly. "Ms. Keyes,
Ms. Keyes, can you hear me?"

Dr. Carey
growled, "She hasn't had enough sedation to hurt a fly. You
should just go home. I'll watch her until she wakes up. At least
one of us should be able to enjoy this evening."

"No.
I'm not leaving until she's awake."

"Fine.
Go into your office.” Carey reached out, cupped her left breast
and with a smirk uttered, “I’ll keep you abreast of everything
here.”

"Jesus,
Boyd, get your hands off of her. She’s under for Christ’s sake!"

"Alright,
Sir Galahad, guardian of fair maidens. Go get some coffee and I'll
call you when she's awake enough for discharge. It shouldn't be
long.”

I hesitated
before leaving the room. "I'll be in the waiting room. Call me
and I'll be back in a second it there's a problem."

As I left
the OR, I pulled out my IPhone and called my wife, Alicia. I told
her of the situation with Keyes.

She
answered, “Alright, do what you have to. But there's always
something to keep you there late. The boys wanted to see you
and--- I'll put the boys to sleep and keep your tuna casserole hot in
the oven," she sighed as she continued, "Again!"

I walked to
my waiting room to talk to Anna Duke, the friend that was to pick up
Keyes after surgery. But when I got there, she wasn't there so I sat
down on the sofa and relaxed.

This room
is my favorite part of the office. It’s got a huge skylight,
custom stereo, a waterfall with a 4 foot drop, and a dozen blooming
orchids. I turned on a Miles Davis CD and flicked on the
multi-colored lights that glowed behind the flowing water. When my
architect had told me that it was impossible to put everything I
wanted in this room without knocking down all the walls, I paid him
his fee and let him go.

Then I went
online, did my research, and installed it all myself. I'm sure I
could have hired someone else to do it faster, but I found that I
really enjoyed learning about plumbing and wiring. In fact, I'd had
so much fun doing it, next on my agenda is to buy and fix up an old
Victorian house in the low country of the Carolinas one day. The
operative word being "one day" since these days I really
couldn't imagine doing much of anything else with my 80-hour work
schedule.

I sat back,
smelled the sweet fragrance of his cymbidium and zygopetalum orchids,
closed my eyes, and dictated the seven operations I performed that
day.

* * *
* *

Meanwhile
in the operating room only 30 feet away, a shadow caught Dr. Boyd
Carey’s eye. Carey quickly turned and saw a light reflect off of
something in the air, something swinging at him.

It hit him
hard in the neck, almost knocking him over. Immediately, he reached
towards his neck and felt a painful jab and a burning sensation.

He tried to
turn to face his attacker, but his body wouldn't move. Again, the
hand slammed him with the sharp object. Carey wanted to lift his
arms to protect himself, but they dropped limply at his side. His
legs grew weak. His muscles quivered uncontrollably.

His mouth
opened to scream, but he couldn't make a sound. Both knees buckled
and his body dropped to the floor.

* * *
* *

I heard a
THUMP! I ran to the OR, opened the door and saw Dr. Carey
lying there!

I looked
over at the OR table. Keyes was still sleeping with the monitors
showing a normal blood pressure, pulse, and EKG.

I dropped
to my knees beside Carey. There was no pulse. Jerking the
stethoscope from his white lab coat, I listened to his chest. There
was only a faint bump...bump...bump. I pounded my fist on Carey's
chest and listened again. Placing the heel of my hand on his lower
sternum, I compressed the chest six times before blowing into Carey's
mouth. His heart sounds were slow and distant.

For the
first time in my surgical career, I felt panic-stricken. What had
happened? I'd only been gone a few minutes.